Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Director: Neil Jordan

Starring: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Thandie Newton, Kirsten Dunst, Stephen Rea, Antonio Bandaras

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Drink From Me And Live Forever

Plot: In 1791, plantation owner Louis De Pointe Du Lac is unhappy with the life he has, until Lestat De Lioncourt comes into his life. Lestat, a vampire, allows Louis to make the decision of either death or life as a vampire forever. And not until his decision is already made, does Louis realize what he has become. He refuses to take human life and is about to leave when Lestat, being the clever being that he is, turns a little orphan girl into a vampire to make Louis stay. The story is told by Louis in 1991 to an interviewer about the lives of himself, Lestat and Claudia through trouble, death, curse and love over the past 200 years.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

Many moons ago I was enticed by this particular lass to watch this.  An hour into it (about when they reach Paris) I was bored so we moved onto other things.  Being a man who couldn't stand Tom Cruise (he has since gotten better in the last few years and I'm liking what he's done recently) I've avoided seeing this like a vampire avoids sunlight.  Today it finally happened. I was ready to finally put this one behind me.  I'm shocked.  It's actually quite good.  The bad: casting Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and, to a lesser extent, Antonio Banderas.  The good: everything else.  The three male leads were horribly wrong for this film.  Pitt was especially bad.  Most of their dialogue was whispered.  Ugh.  Oh, the other thing is the cliche'd dialogue from those three.  I guess if you had different and better actors in those roles there's a chance that some of those words wouldn't sound so damned silly.  Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee use to pull it off effortlessly.  Neil Jordan crafted a fine movie with a great, somber score by Elliot Goldenthal (with a theme reminiscent of Max Steiner's for KING KONG (1933)).  I'll never revisit it because of Pitt and Cruise.  And fuck that vampire open-mouth HAAAAAA shit just before they take a drink from someone's neck.  I hate that shit.